2025 Programme, Festival
A Festival of Architecture Built on Stories
18.09.25
16.09.25
Explore how the design of our built environment can shape a better world for generations to come.
For this year’s Open House Dublin free festival of architecture, taking place 11-19 October, we invite you to explore how the design of our built environment can shape a better world for generations to come.
Celebrating its 20th year, this year’s festival theme is Future Heritage. Dublin’s O’Connell Street, a place where the past, present and future converge, serves as the focal point of the visual campaign.
The Open House Dublin programme features more than 200 events for everyone to experience free of charge. This year’s festival promises to be the most exciting and accessible yet, with guided tours of landmark buildings, outdoor spaces, private homes, and architects’ studios alongside exhibitions, conversations, a weekend of family-friendly events, and much more. The packed line-up also includes unique Open House events at IAF House, Charlemont Square.
The full 2025 programme is available to explore from today at openhousedublin.com, with bookings opening on 24 September at 10am.
Among this year’s new additions to the Open House Dublin programme are guided tours of some of the city’s most iconic and rarely accessible spaces. Highlights include: the General Post Office (GPO), Dublin’s landmark civic building, as well as the Docklands Municipal Water Sports Centre and Docklands Office, Dublin Airport’s Old Central Terminal Building, the Europa Experience Dublin on Chatham Street, Dublinia, and the French Ambassador’s residence on Ailesbury Road, among others.
New guided walking tours invite participants to explore the contradictions, character, and potential futures of O’Connell Street, and heritage highlights on strolls from Sydney Parade to Ranelagh and from the Rialto Luas Stop to Grand Canal Harbour.
Housing, community, and neighbourhoods take centre stage in this year’s programme, with engaging walking tours led by Dublin City Architects – offered both in English and as Gaeilge, showcasing how thoughtful design is shaping the future of Dublin city, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin.
Meanwhile, tours of renowned OPW buildings – including Áras an Uachtaráin, The Four Courts, The Custom House and Áras Mhic Dhiarmada (Bus Áras) – will focus on how these landmarks are being preserved, revitalised, and adapted for contemporary use, demonstrating the evolving relationship between heritage and the future of the city.
IAF House, a free, accessible temporary public venue for architecture and culture, returns to Charlemont Square this autumn. It will serve as the Open House Info Hub and host a range of events as part of Open House Dublin, including the Open Table series, a set of informal lunchtime conversations exploring timely and relevant topics. Among them:
IAF House will also host three exhibitions, one of which is the work of HouseEurope!, an award-winning activist campaign to change European law to prevent unnecessary demolition of existing buildings.
This year, Open House Dublin once again offers visitors a rare opportunity to step inside some of the most imaginative homes across Dublin. Highlights include: a previously derelict one-bedroom apartment turned into a vibrant family home by Rachel Carmody Design in Dublin 8; a Victorian cottage renovation in South Dublin by Arigho Larmour Wheeler; a contemporary family home in Portmarnock by Robert Burke Architects; the careful restoration of an original Pembroke cottage in Dundrum by REIR Studio; a restored end-of-terrace red brick house in Dublin 8 by Architectural Farm; and ‘Moat Lane’, a new home thoughtfully built in the garden of the client’s childhood home in Clontarf by Brennan Furlong Architects.
Open Studios return to the festival for 2025, inviting people to step behind the scenes with in-person tours and talks with architects at their design studios around Dublin. A talk on 16 October by celebrated Belgian architect An Fonteyne (noAarchitecten) at the newly opened International Centre for the Image in Dublin’s Docklands will unpack the reasons why a building in Europe is demolished every minute. Events focused on improving accessibility include a workshop by Spinal Injuries Ireland inviting participants to experience the built environment from the perspective of a wheelchair user.
The festival kicks off with Open House Junior on 11-12 October, a weekend of free workshops and events for children, teens, and families across the city and county. Highlights of the Junior programme include LEGOⓇ-building activities, a creative workshop with artist Asbestos, guided tours of The Ark cultural centre, and Architreks – architect-led guided walking tours designed for families. As part of the weekend, festival supporter Cairn Homes will host the Cairn Apprenticeship Programme Mobile Training Centre at TU Dublin, offering young people a hands-on opportunity to explore a variety of construction trades and discover the exciting possibilities of a career in the built environment.
Announcing the Open House Dublin 2025 programme of events today, IAF Director Emmett Scanlon said: “This year’s Open House theme, Future Heritage, is our loud, collective call to rethink how we value and care for our heritage, our future and our role within it. We invite communities and all people to get involved and participate this year, as from O’Connell Street to the coast, and for the twentieth year running, we reveal the value and impact excellent architecture and design have on all of our lives.”
Welcoming the festival, State Architect and Principal Architect, OPW, Conor Screenan, said: “The Office of Public Works (OPW), alongside many others across public and private sectors, is once more proud to support the IAF’s Open House Dublin Festival of Architecture, helping to keep it free and open to all. As part of this year’s festival, within the IAF’s all-island autumn programme, OPW volunteers look forward to sharing some of the spaces and places we deliver in service of government priorities; these value-for-many investments are our Future Heritage. Year after year interest surges from people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds to participate in the festival’s events. Join the celebration and add to the debate on architecture’s enduring contribution to our health and well-being; it’s a matter of public concern.”
All Open House Dublin events are free. Pre-booking is required for many of the events. Pre-booking for ticketed events goes live at 10am on 24 September on openhousedublin.com, where full details of the 2025 programme, including which events require pre-booking, can be found.
Photo: Open House Dublin 2025 photo of O’Connell Street by Rich Gilligan.
18.09.25
11.09.25